Part of me (the marketing consultant part) wants to jump up and down and say “YES! SEE! READ THIS, SKEPTICAL CLIENT!”

Another part of me (the cynical online marketing veteran part) looks at this relatively cynically since it is coming from Google. Google is making intentional moves to distance its majority of revenue from cost per click actions on desktops and laptops and focus on transitioning its largest advertisers to mobile, contextual, and video (YouTube) ads. The average Cost Per Click revenue is down 11% this past quarter from a year ago and will continue to plummet as advertisers continue to realize that clicks aren’t a scarce commodity. That would fall in line with this statement from last week:

According to Bush, marketers are underestimating the value of clicks on desktop by about four times and clicks on mobile by as much as ten times. “You can see if someone had clicked on an ad or visited store, we need to start thinking about the creative we put in place.”

So which part of me is right? As with most things (especially in advertising / marketing), it’s not a black-and-white issue. Yes, Google is right to encourage advertisers and marketers to realize that clicks are undervalued when it comes to the conversion process. However, that realization would serve Google well.